


i know that i'd die without you.

by cooperbettycooper



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Hospitals, post 2x21 fic, sadness but it gets better at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-05-06 08:13:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14637747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cooperbettycooper/pseuds/cooperbettycooper
Summary: After corralling Cheryl, a newly freed Toni, Archie, Sweet Pea, and FP, they scour the forest for Jughead. None of them find him. They’re ready to give up and look elsewhere, but FP emerges from the thick of the forest carrying a bruised, battered, and broken Jughead in his arms. His matted hair was pressed to his forehead, beanie long gone and serpent jacket nowhere to be seen. His arm has a giant, bleeding wound on it.The serpent tattoo. It’s gone.He’s limp, lifeless, and drenched in his own blood. Screams strangle Betty’s throat.[post 2.21 fic.]





	i know that i'd die without you.

**Author's Note:**

> I havent written in ages, but I wanna thank my girls sim and mel (@wonderrful and @classicalbughead on tumblr) for all your help with this little piece. you guys are the best and you really do the most and I love you.

The halls of the hospital are haunted with silence.

It hasn’t been long since it happened, not long at all. Just hours ago, the streets of Riverdale had broken into hysteria, crushing crowds coursing through the streets, screaming for justice, help or both. Jughead hadn’t been amongst them, Betty would later discover. He had been off bartering his life to keep the peace and prevent more bloodshed. The sacrificial lamb, so to speak.

After corralling Cheryl, a newly freed Toni, Archie, Sweet Pea, and FP, they scour the forest for Jughead. None of them find him. They’re ready to give up and look elsewhere, but FP emerges from the thick of the forest carrying a bruised, battered, and broken Jughead in his arms. His matted hair was pressed to his forehead, beanie long gone and serpent jacket nowhere to be seen. His arm has a giant, bleeding wound on it.

_ The serpent tattoo. It’s gone. _

He’s limp, lifeless, and drenched in his own blood. Screams strangle Betty’s throat.

She doesn’t remember much of what happened between that traumatic sight in the forest and sitting in the waiting room of a disheveled Centreville General Hospital. Riverdale General is obviously not an option anymore since it’s splitting at the seams with Dr. Masters being the newest Black Hood victim. And it turns out, Centreville can afford decent, speedy ambulances. 

That moment is nothing but a blur in her mind now, too much had happened in too little time. Her brain hasn’t bothered to process it, and shelves it away as an incomplete event to be dealt with later. Baggage that won’t be unzipped just yet.

FP gets into the ambulance with Jughead, leaving Betty and the others to find their own way to the hospital. They resort to Fred’s truck, driven by Archie, who is still a newly minted driver, but it’s really Sweet Pea barking orders from the backseat.

Betty tries to rest her head on the window, she’s sitting shotgun. Her head hurts. The streetlights are too bright. Behind her, they all continue to bicker.

“Archie, how long ‘til we get there?” Toni asks.   
“Ten minutes guys, I promise-”

  
And then a squirrel skitters into their path, and Archie nearly veers right off the road.

“Goddamnit Northsider, it’s a fucking squirrel! Get your ass up and pull over. I’m driving!”   
“Shut your trap, Snap Pea,” Cheryl barks.   
“It’s  _ Sweet Pea, _ Princess!”   
“Shut the hell up, I’m driving!” Archie yells, making Betty’s head pound from the volume.

They argue and yell all the way to the hospital, but Betty can’t listen to any of it because if she tries to be present in this moment, she’s going to break. Her mind is still playing a reel of all of the horrors she’s experienced in the last 24 hours. There’s bile collecting in the back of her throat, and the last thing she wants right now is to throw up. 

They make it to Centreville General almost half an hour later instead of the promised 10 minutes, where FP is sitting in a cushy waiting room chair. The group is quickly informed that Jughead is in surgery, he’s got some internal bleeding and they’re trying to get it under control.

Not long passes and Cheryl begins to lament of her hunger and the others agree. Simultaneously, they all turn to Betty. She’s the only one who they know won’t refuse. She sighs deeply, and FP hands her a $20 to go grab food from downstairs. She obliges, frustrated, exhausted, and struggling to keep her balance on her own two feet. The world is spinning like a sickening carnival ride as she walks through the halls.

She walks along the line of yellow tiles in the hallway and making her way down, balancing some generic refreshments from the coffee shop downstairs. Her mind is fixated on the yellow stripe. It runs down the middle of the hallway, bright and tacky and unfitting for a hospital (even though it matches with the smeared paintings of flowers on the walls perfectly, it leaves her with an unsettling feeling.) She ignores that thought because it gives her something to focus on.

The food doesn’t smell very good. The coffee carries a heavy burnt stench and the donuts seemed just passable to sell given how close they are to crumbling. But they’d just have to make do. A nurse walks past and gives Betty the side eye, her lips pressed and white.

The air is stuffy. She’s trying to breathe but her lungs burn from a faint undertone of disinfectant. The walls on both sides of her are covered in scuff marks from the inevitable trolley bumps they must have been battered with. Betty can’t breathe, the sterile air is far too strong. Sure, she’s choking up at a little disinfectant, but she can’t help but wonder if Jughead is breathing right now at all. 

_ What if he’s flatlined?  _

The fear makes her walk a little faster, but soon enough, she’s breaking into a full sprint and one of the coffees she was carrying sloshes onto the floor. And her shadow scares her. It’s the only thing following her but she cannot run from it.

It feels like forever has gone by when the nurse finally comes over to them. 

“Family of Forsythe Jones? He’s stable, you can go see him now.”

FP tries to stand up, but Betty’s glare and clenched teeth force him back into his seat. FP is the reason this happened, Betty thinks bitterly. She knows it’s not right, but FP is the one that led Jughead into this life. She knows it’s not right, but she can’t help but be angry at him. Maybe she’s being unnecessarily protective right now, but she just has to be the one to make sure Jughead is okay. It has to be her. No one else objects.

She walks down the hall, pushes the door open with her foot and steps inside.

He looks pale; lifeless. As though someone had desaturated his bright red cheeks and glowing skin and black hair, leaving him a pale empty grey. He’s got an IV of some clear liquid running from a tube into his arm. Every so often, his eyelashes flutter just a little, lacking energy to fully open.

“Jughead?” She whispers, taking a seat next to his bed.

“Betty,” he mumbles. She’s never felt her heart beat against the confines of her chest quite so strongly before. She figures there’s enough room on the bed for her to lie down. She doesn’t rest any of her weight against him, but he grunts and throws his arm around her anyway. There’s a bandage wrapped tightly around the part of his arm that was once inked with a snake tattoo.

“I just got here,” She replies softly, her fingers tracing his hand.

“Please don’t go,” he mumbles back to her, turning his head but not opening his eyes. He doesn’t have the strength for a full conversation right now, the nurse had warned her about that. He’s on pain medication too, the nurse said if he said anything nonsensical, the morphine was to blame.

“I won’t, I won’t,” she whispers it over and over again like their lives depends on it.  But he doesn’t seem to hear her.

“You know...” he continues, peeling his eyes open. The lighting in the hospital room has been dimmed, but she swears his blue eyes are the brightest thing she’s ever seen. 

“What, Jug? What is it? Do you need something?” She’s almost frantic, but she tries to soothe her frayed nerves and hear what he has to say.

“I can’t wait to marry you someday,”

He lets out a gentle sob, tears tracing his cheeks, as he pulls her into him with all the strength he has. It’s not much.

She’s kept it together through everything, through her father outing himself as the Black Hood in the most psychotraumatic of ways, through the riots, through seeing Jughead banged up and near-dead, and not to mention that horrible drive to the hospital. But now, now is the first time in the whole night that Betty begins to cry. 

She kisses him softly. He doesn’t kiss her back, he can’t, but he smiles after and that’s enough for her right now.

“I can’t wait to marry you too, Jug. I love you.”

“Call...everyone. I wanna see them...” His words trail off, and Betty wipes her tears and nods.

She’s not sure why he wants everyone in here, but her chest is heaving and her body hasn’t shed all its tears yet. She sits up, and he looks at her with what could only be concern. She’s absolutely terrified that he might never get out of here, there could be complications and he could die. She cries some more. 

When Betty truly feels like she’s forced up all the tears left in her, she nods and helps him move his bed into more of a sitting position than a lying one. He thanks her, and she leaves to ask the nurse if everyone else is allowed to see him yet.

Reluctantly, the nurse checks his vitals again, and allows Archie, Sweet Pea, Toni, Cheryl, and his father to enter the room. With so many people in there, it feels a lot more crowded. Betty retakes her place next to Jughead, who cranes his neck to look at her. 

Archie bombards Jughead with a hug, and he lets out a groan of pain. FP tells him to lay off the kid, and Archie steps back, ashamed. In turn, they all voice the typical statements:  _ we’re so glad you’re okay _ ,  _ how are you feeling _ , all that. 

FP sits down on the seat next to the bed, holding his son’s hand pensively. 

“I’m sorry Jughead.”   
“It’s okay, dad.”

That’s all they speak of the unspoken thing (the thing being his injuries.)

For the rest of his friends comments and concerns, he croaks out the one word responses he can manage. He’s still very tired, and at one point, his head droops to one side with a stupid grin. Archie gives him a weird look.

“Is he uhh...okay?” The boy asks.   
“Is that supposed to be happening?” Toni questions, “Should I call the nurse?”   
“I don’t think so, it’s probably just the pain medication,” Betty explains. “They gave him morphine.”

“Guys…” Jughead whispers, and the whole room falls quiet. 

“I want you guys to know… I love you all.”   
“Love you too man,” Sweet Pea says automatically, Archie giving him a strange look.

Jughead tries to tighten his grip on Betty’s hand, but he lacks the strength to do so.

“I’m gonna marry Betty...” He slurs. And with that, he drops his head back into his pillow with a smile. “You’re all invited.”

“What,  _ now?! _ ” Cheryl exclaims.

He doesn’t answer, he seems to be out cold. It’s so ironic, that back in Riverdale, life as they know it is imploding. But all he can think about, even with his brain full of fog, is that he wants to spend the rest of his life with Betty.

That’s the second time in one night that Betty Cooper begins to cry, but it’s the first time they’re happy tears.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed it :')


End file.
